Ekco 5768 3-Way Speakers

Acting on a tip-off from a secrete agent, I drove to a local Cash Converters to investigate some strange Ekco speakers. Something was familiar about the Ekco name and I had a feeling that these may have some nice Philips bass drivers in them. I thought I had some Ekco speakers many years ago but it was a very faint memory. When I walked in the shop I was surprised at their size, they were bigger than I was expecting, GREAT!

They had no badges on the front and the grills were impossible to remove. However I could just about see through the grill cloth and noticed the voice coil was exposed. AH! I'm sure I'd heard something about Philips bass drivers with thick rubber dust caps which disintegrate with age. 

They were in very good condition with only a couple of visible scratches, I presume these probably happened in the shop as they looked rather fresh. The other drivers were well hidden but I was fairly confident they were a 3-way system. At £19 they were soon in my car and off to their new home!

 

The first thing was to get those grills off! On one speaker was a gap in the corner of the aluminium trim which allowed me to get a knife blade in and leaver up the covers. OH MY! A full array of Philips drivers mounted on a rather charming, plastic veneered baffle. The dust cap was in several pieces which was a shame but otherwise everything was as it left the factory. Why Philips took the time to make the fronts so appealing and then add removable grills you couldn't physically remove, is beyond me.

The tweeter is very well known and commonly used by many manufactures in the 70s but has a poor reputation. Personally, I feel its underrated, it certainly works in this setup, even if the super sparkle is lacking slightly. The presentation is sharp and clear, with good imaging and separation.

The mid-range unit is again Philips and contained in a separate chamber. I have little to say about this unit, there's little info out there it would seem. The sound is clean and open, its not a fuzzy warm sounding thing, its fast and accurate.

The 10" bass driver is really nice and I would suspect its an AlNiCo but all the drivers are glued in place which makes a fantastic sealed enclosure but halts any further investigation. It has nice thick rubber rolled surround which is still nice and soft (unlike many Wharfdale units now).

 

Ekco go way back and were a big British company making TV sets and Radios. They were lagging behind slightly in the Radio market until they released a round bakelite model which was so funky and fresh, it saved the company. In later years though, the company faded away and was bought by Philips. This is why these "Ekco" speakers have "Philips" drivers I assume. More Ekco Info

 

So how do these £19 boxes with so called "naff tweeters" actually sound?  Quite good in my opinion.

If you are looking for warm valve like sound to use with your valve amps, forget it. While these are quite efficient, they have a very open and fresh presentation. They are crisp and delicate and certainly don't sound like "old speakers". I have only two issues with these and that's firstly: the bass. Despite having a massive 10" bass driver, they simply don't have the bottom end. They have punch and tightness but no real sub bass unless you get far away from them and play at louder levels. In the front room they worked fairly well but sitting up close in the second room didn't do them any favors, but that's fair enough I suppose. My second issue is the placement of the tweeter. Even if they didn't want to make the cabs in mirror sets, It would still be nice to have a linear arrangement. There is just about enough space on the baffle to do it, but again, if you can get away from them, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

If you're lucky enough to find a pair you'll most likely get them for nothing, which is great. So much of this "vintage" stuff is sky rocketing now, and while that's nice on the one hand, it dose rather spoil it for those of us who simply enjoy finding a bargin and having a play with it.

Until the next time guys ;)

Goldring Lenco GL75 DIY V-Blocks

Ah the good old GL75, my trusty companion. Quite long in the tooth now but I love it, and personally I find its sound reproduction quite good for a table from 1972! Im not a huge record head but I have a big collection of vinyl and the Lenco is usually the deck I reach for. However, this particular deck has the common v-block issue.

Im not going into too much detail about dismantling your lenco but hopefully the pictures will give you an idea. Below you can see the v-blocks, a mustard coloured rubber material which has perished with age, especially the one on the right.

The best option is to buy a new pair online for around £20 + p&p. However, I have a little trick which is easy to try, non destructive and its free! All you need is: some super glue, scissors and an old drinks can.

I propose we keep the original v-blocks but add an aluminium skin over the top.

You will need to cut a strip of metal from a drinks can. Make it the width of the "inside" of the v-block. The longer you make the strips, the easier it is to see if they are sitting square latter on.



You then bend it into a right angle, make sure your fold is straight and true, I used a straight edge to bend against. You can now pop it in the v-block to check it sits well and is the correct size. Hopefully you have something like the picture above. If so make another one to match.

You should now have two strips in place, one for each block. Now this is the tricky bit! You need to apply a tiny dab of glue to the lower part of the strips, pop them in place and then get your arm seated as quickly as possible. Make sure your arm is seated correctly as the glue will dry fast! Hopefully you now have something like above.

Once the strips have bonded to the blocks you can remove the arm and the v-blocks. You now simply trim the excess metal from the blocks. Hopefully it looks like the above.

Now put it back together and fold the little strips over the tone arm. This will keep the arm sitting in the crisp metal groove we have made. Put the rest back together and your ready to go!



Before the arm would loose tracking about half way in a disc and do all sorts of jumping ect but now with my super high precision v-blocks in place she plays solid and true. The wobble in the arm is all gone, before you could rotate the arm and it used to lean to one side.

All in all I'm very pleased with my creation but I certainly wouldn't recommend it instead of new blocks. This should only be tried if you don't have the money or simply cant wait for new blocks to arrive. You need good eyes and a steady hand and the success of the project depends on how accurately you fit your strips in place.

Until the next time guys...

Pioneer CT-F1000

The Pioneer CT-F1000 Cassette Tape Deck (1977-79).

2 motor, 3 head design, with dolby-B, MPX filter, 400hz test tone, bias adjustment, pitch control, big vu meters with peak lamp, analogue counter with memory stop function and more!

The CT-F1000 really was a supreme piece of engineering which, apart from the blue lamps in the meters, is all original and still going strong. She came with SA-9500 MKII and matching tuner and they didnt come cheap. Sadly the tuner is faulty in stereo mode but all units in very good condition, with manuals and schematics!

 

When you take off the lid, the inside is filled with goodies, big transformer (for a tape deck), big solid looking transport, a nice array of circuit boards on the right standing up on end. Everything looks good, the inside matches the outside and this has some serious looks!

The transport buttons are solid aluminum with engraved icons. The head is "UNI X'TAL FERRITE" what ever that means. You have a 400hz test tone which can be used to fine tune your recording. Dual capstans help ensure low wow & flutter and is surely a tell tail sign of superior build quality.

 

So, how dose she sound?

Well for those of you who think tape sounds better than CD...you'll get no joy here. No cassette deck is really going to match a high-end cd player. The top end is just not there, 16khz upwards is very nonexistent and the sub-base? forget it. But most of us wouldn't expect such standards from an older format that was never intended to be super high-end. Even so, I have to admit I was ever so slightly disappointed with this beast. It had the looks and the build quality but the sound did nothing for me. Its a good machine and sounds fine but Its nothing like an RS-9900 and Im sure the more recent cheap & cheerful direct drive machines from Technics had far more clarity than this old Pioneer thing.

Am I pleased I bought her? You're dam right I am, but I probably wouldn't buy another.

If you're looking at buying one of these to simply mate with the rest of your Pioneer stack, you should be very pleased. If you're looking for good sound from a cassette deck, maybe give this one a miss. Better still, get a reel to reel machine!

Until the next time, zzzzzzzzzzz

Bang & Olufsen Beocord 5000

Bang & Olufsen Beocord 5000 Cassette Deck

Designed by Jacob Jensen and released 1984 - 1987 to accompany the 5000 series, which all share the same amazing styling.

This was in fact a very serious piece of kit in its day. It offered a very high standard of sound reproduction and featured an HXPro head. Dolby B and Dolby C noise reduction, digital counter and meter levels. 

 

The front panel slides toward you, motor driven, and reveals the transport and control buttons. To open the unit you push the bottom left corner of the face-plate. You feel a satisfying click, then she opens up, smooth and rigid.

 

When she arrived she wasn't well, no rewind and the draw couldn't fully close. The faulty draw was due to a piece of metal trim on the underside of the top cover. A metal bar running across the lid had fallen down one end, jamming the draw and preventing it closing. I was able to glue the metal bar back in place but if something heavy were place on top or if you lent on it, getting to the back. It would probably break again and I suspect this is what happened in the first place. So keep a look out on ebay for 5000s with draws not closing fully, could be an easy fix

 

The rewind issue was fixed by winding the mechanism by hand and a little blob of oil on any sliding parts. There is one other fault I later found which is a little annoying. The cap-spin teeth can slide up and down but it looks like the springs have lost their bounce because the cap spin teeth get stuck down and fail to engage with the cassette. You have to take out the cassette , pull up the cap-spins and replace your tape.

 

I haven't heard this playing because it has a 7 pin connector for audio and remote control. I haven't bothered putting phono sockets on the back yet but thats the way to go. Retain the original connection and add the phono sockets. Two holes, two connectors, four little wires, job done.

Untill the next time zzzzzzzzzzzzzz